Science education in Washington is being quietly starved | Opinion

Step into my high school physics classroom this fall, and you’ll see students collecting data with Vernier sensors, sketching models on whiteboards and engaging in discussions to explain how the world works. This kind of hands-on, collaborative learning was shaped by a 10-week training course I completed through the American Modeling Teachers Association — funded by federal Title I dollars in 2023.

But opportunities like that are vanishing.

Due to ongoing underfunding and the recent withholding of Title I funds, teachers in districts like Franklin Pierce, Clover Park and Tacoma are increasingly left to cover professional development, curriculum design and lab equipment out of pocket. The consequences are quiet but profound.

Science education, more than almost any other subject, relies on time, space and materials. And without them, it’s being reduced to screens and simulations. What should be a lab-based exploration of the natural world becomes digital substitution. That’s not innovation, it’s survival.

There’s a deep irony here: as schools ban cell phones to minimize distraction, they simultaneously place students in front of screens for most of the day. With shrinking budgets, the shift toward unvetted AI tools will only accelerate. And without thoughtful guidance, these tools often introduce or reinforce misconceptions that are harder to unteach than to prevent.

Even when we do receive new funding, the immediate question at the district level is: Which major publisher’s curriculum should we buy? Rarely is the conversation about updating science equipment or restocking lab supplies. This is egregious when so many curricula become quickly outdated or rely on expensive subscription models that siphon resources year after year.

Even in Washington, where the Next Generation Science Standards emphasize hands-on, inquiry-based learning, science remains one of the least supported and least assessed subjects. There is no statewide curriculum and no requirement to pass a science standardized test in order to graduate. That means the quality of science instruction depends largely on a student’s zip code and the luck of the draw with staffing. One student might launch bottle rockets in a physics unit, while another completes a worksheet on Newton’s Laws without ever touching a spring scale.

This inequity is growing, made worse by teacher burnout, split classrooms, and rising class sizes. NGSS is a visionary framework, but it takes time, training, and infrastructure to implement it well. Too often, science teachers are expected to prepare students for a 21st-century world using 20th-century materials, if they’re lucky.

This is not just a K–12 issue. As college costs rise and federal research funding faces cuts, pathways into science are narrowing. Without early, meaningful investment in classrooms like mine, we risk losing an entire generation of scientists, engineers and informed citizens before they ever begin.

Tacoma is a city that values resilience and innovation. But those qualities start in our public schools. We need urgent action: restore and expand Title I funding, invest in lab infrastructure and supplies, not just glossy curriculum, and support teachers with the resources and time they need.

Because the future of science doesn’t start in a university lab, it starts in a high school classroom in Tacoma.

This story was originally published July 22, 2025 at 5:00 AM.